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Thursday, January 15, 2004

Now seriously...

Cambodia is poor. Very poor. There are more beggars here and people living on the streets than you will see in the whole of Laos and Vietnam put together. Cambodia also has one of the highest saturation of landmines in the world. The Khmer Rouge laid a couple of million at the start of the 70s and when the Vietnamese came in to overthrow the KR, they also laid hundreds of kilometers for good measure. In some places they are literally all over the place, walk 1 meter from the path and you are seriously risking your life. All the Cambodians can do to protect themselves is put signs up. Defusing them is not an option as there is neither enough cash nor enough people to do it. As a byproduct of this you will see a shocking amount of people here with one or more limbs missing. Naturally in most countries you would get some prosthetics or at least a wheelchair, here you are lucky to even get a home made skateboard and a pair of flip flops to drag yourself around on your belly...

Mines are extremely vicious weapons and are mainly built for one purpose - killing and maiming human beings. They recognize no ceasefire and remain active for many many years.
So if you have some spare cash or time, you might want to check out:
International Campaign to Ban Landmines
Adopt-A-Minefield

Hey, Princess Di might even bless you from above...